John Conlan, Ex-County Supervisor, Dies

John T. Conlan, a former county supervisor who represented the Thousand Oaks area, died April 3 after a long battle with cancer. He was 73.

Conlan was appointed 2nd District Ventura County Supervisor by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967. He served two terms and retired from the board in 1975. He then returned to his real estate business in Thousand Oaks, which he began in the early 1960s.

His family and friends remembered Conlan as a man who cared deeply about his community.

“Whenever there was anything happening in Conejo Valley, big or small, John Conlan was there,” said Frank Schillo, current 2nd District supervisor, who was a friend of Conlan’s for 20 years. “I remember John more as a person who lived in the community than a supervisor or politician.”

Born in Philadelphia on Aug. 26, 1924, Conlan excelled in athletics and was on an All-Star city high school football team. After high school, he joined the Marines. He received a purple heart while stationed in the Peleliu islands in the South Pacific.

After four years in the Marines, Conlan played professional baseball for farm teams of the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns. He attended Temple University in Philadelphia from 1946 to 1948, the year he married Dorothy Smith.

In 1952, Conlan and his wife moved to Los Angeles where he sold Studebakers until 1960, when the family moved to the Conejo Valley and Conlan began selling real estate.

In the 1970s, he was honored as Conejo Valley Historical Society’s Don Triunfo de Conejo, and was selected Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce man of the year. He was also past president of the Cancer Society, Ventura County chapter, and served on the Conejo Board of Realtors and Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church in Thousand Oaks.

Dorothy Conlan recalled her husband as a “man of many talents and considerable Irish charm.”

“He had a great wit,” she said. “He had a way of remembering and telling stories. He would always say, ‘That reminds me of a story’ and then he would be off. As they say, he was good at kissing the blarney stone.”

The couple’s eldest son, John Jr., said his father had a great love of sports, especially baseball. Growing up, he remembered his father taking him and the rest of the family on many trips across the country.

The senior Conlan was instrumental in starting Many Mansions Inc., which provides affordable housing for low-income families, in the early 1980s. “He was a soft touch with a big heart,” said longtime friend Joseph Smolarski, a Many Mansions spokesman.

Conlan also belonged to many community clubs and groups, including Knights of Columbus, Thousand Oaks Rotary Club, Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., Conejo Future Foundation, Golden Condor committee of the Boys Scouts and Boy Scouts Advisory Council.

Along with his wife and son, Conlan is survived by his son Leo Conlan and two daughters, Barbara Dreher of Moorpark and Mara Sinclair of Grover Beach, Calif.; his sister, Betty O’Reilly of Philadelphia, and 12 grandchildren.

Rosary will be said at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Sister of Notre Dame in Thousand Oaks, with the funeral at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Paschal Baylon, followed by burial at Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village.